Uršula Berlot

The subject of the Introspection project is perception and various states of consciousness as expressed by the recording and visualizing of mental (cerebral) spaces. The project explores the role of the body and the function of the nervous system in constituting imaginary spaces, that is, conscious and unconscious mental spheres. It focuses on the possibilities of producing an aesthetic experience and investigates the conditions of the viewer’s active role in constituting a work of art. The exhibition presents three spatial works with projections of videos based on radiological images of my brain. Using medical magnetic resonance imaging technology has enabled me to visualize the mental responses of my brain to specific visual stimuli.

The installations Kaleidoscopic Gaze and Spiral Floating are based on digitally- processed radiological images of my brain activity as I contemplate Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema, which was conceived as an optic dispositive inducing a four-dimensional spatial-temporal perceptive experience in the viewer (by alternating the concave and convex effects of spiral swirling). The kaleidoscopic pattern of the video aims to similarly expand the viewer’s perception and consciousness; the repetitive, hypnotic pattern of light projected onto the image reflected by a mirror produces a layering of fractally-fragmented reflections, that is, a virtual multi-dimensional space in motion.

The video installation Butterfly uses radiological images of my brain responding to different colors. The image of a butterfly changing colors is formed by a light reflection of a video that is being projected onto a horizontal image on a mirror. It alludes to the concept of the "butterfly effect", which in chaos theory posits that slight, even infinitesimally small variations in the initial conditions of a dynamic system may produce extreme and unpredictable results in other space and time coordinates: that a butterfly flapping its wings could set off a hurricane on the other side of the planet. The shape on the mirror is a graphically processed image of my brain; the butterfly reflection is a metaphor for the power of our "invisible" thoughts, our emotions, our so-called mental worlds, conscious or unconscious, that keep changing the physical reality surrounding us. Butterfly deals with the interconnectedness of the visible and the invisible and questions the causal relations between the perceptible and the intelligible.

Based on bringing together scientific theories about the neural functioning of our bodies with certain art-themes, the Introspection project employs visual media, medical technology and photosensitive materials. Formally, it uses projected and reflected light, that is, optical phenomena by which we directly enter immaterial worlds. In this context, light is an artistic medium that creates, with its immateriality, fluidity, and mobility, analogies to what happens in our consciousness, and references to the spiritual dimension of reality.